You may want to update what you know about William Gray, because this recent Discover Magazine interview suggests that he's completely opposite your statements. Examples:
"I don't have the budget that I had, so I have cut my project way back. I am in retirement. I'm still working every day, but I don't teach and I don't have as many graduate students and as much financial need. I've got a little money from Lexington Insurance out of Boston, and I have some National Science Foundation money. For years I haven't had any NOAA, NASA, or Navy money."
Nothing from NOAA, an organization you specifically mention as working with him.
"Right now I'm trying to work on this human-induced global-warming thing that I think is grossly exaggerated.... I'm not disputing that there has been global warming. There was a lot of global warming in the 1930s and '40s, and then there was a slight global cooling from the middle '40s to the early '70s. And there has been warming since the middle '70s, especially in the last 10 years. But this is natural, due to ocean circulation changes and other factors. It is not human induced.... Nearly all of my colleagues who have been around 40 or 50 years are skeptical as hell about this whole global-warming thing. But no one asks us."
That -- and the rest of the interview -- sounds like a great deal of disagreement that global warming will lead to bigger western Atlantic hurricanes. He's convinced that it's all natural cycles of ocean temperatures, and that humans have little or nothing to do with it.
More than one hurricane specialist has also told more than one climatologist to go soak his head, as the current rise in hurricanes was predicted years ago. Before the beginning of the current season, there was a (rather amusing) tit-for-tat going on between certain eminent climatologists and certain eminent hurricane specialists. The hurricane people said, "We'll have lots of storms this year, and a lot of them will be big." The climatologists said, "See?! Global warming!" To which the hurricane specialists replied, "No, normal pattern." To which the climatologists said, "No! Global warming! You don't know what you're talking about!" To which the hurricane people said, "You're lame. I don't want to talk to you anymore."
Well, it was more involved than that, and actually funny. But you get the idea.
Are polar bear populations not going up despite the melting of the cap? What portion of a bear's diets is made up of seals as opposed to fish or other sources?
Ice roads are usually built over lakes, many of them shallow. The research bases are outnumbered by the communities mentioned in the same post. They rely on truckers crossing the ice to keep them alive through fuel, food, and spare parts, not to mention the delivery of mail.
Thank you for noticing. I tried using it a few weeks ago, just to make a simple triangle. Figuring out how to draw a line took about 20 minutes, and then all of the other things that seemed to contravene everything I knew about GUIs made me give up, infuriated. I wondered how anyone could tolerate it (in somewhat more coarse language) before going and pouring myself a glass of scotch and watching Mythbusters, who at least make some sense.
AVG has scored poorly on a number of tests that I've seen. I ditched them and went for Avast instead. Thinking about buying one of these others, though.
For me, before the movie and after the movie is a social event. I like going with friends, discussing things, having fun. Once you're in the movie, with the exception of group laughter, shock, etc, you should be silent. I don't speak to the people with me, and I try to keep the sounds of eating candy or whatever as quiet as possible, such as pouring my Reese's Pieces into a napkin so the package doesn't make noise during the movie.
My worse movie experience ever was the rereleased Empire Strikes Back at (IIRC) Mann's Chinese in Los Angeles. The place is huge -- palacial, in your parlance -- and filled with people making so much noise during the movie that I couldn't hear any of it, even though I was in a relatively good seat. Waste of money, in my mind.
Two tickets ($9.50 each) plus a shared large popcorn/soda combo ($7.50) comes close to $30 ($26.50). And I usually go either first or last showing to avoid the problem people. I will make exceptions for certain movies (H2G2, for example), but generally I will not see a movie on the opening Friday because the level of stupid in the audience is too high.
I'd heard something about methane, but I'm not sure I buy into that.
I saw something recently, possibly a Jane's analysis, that suggested that the SR-71 was retired when Aurora was scheduled to take over, but then that Aurora didn't work out which was why the Blackbird was brought back in, then retired a few years later when a new replacement was available. It's possible, I suppose, that the Aurora was grounded for some universal reason such as an unexpected mandatory engine replacement that took some time to work out.
The system will probably work like the ABL. A low-power targeting laser makes the first contact with the target. This allows for target correction and ionization of a channel for the main beam to use. Once the target is confirmed (probably a fraction of a second), the main laser fires, with virtually no chance for the target to deviate.
Depending on its uses and where it's aimed, there's a good chance that the beam will simply fire off hamrlessly into space, presuming that enough of it makes it through the atmosphere to be able to do damage. If it misses and hits the ground or sea... Well, that could be problematic, depending on what it hits. Flash fires, steam explosions, and serious sunburns are just a few things that I can think of.
The designers were providing a replacement for the original Jeep, not an armored combat vehicle. They needed something lightweight and fast, able to deflect the odd rifle round. They weren't intended to deal with anti-armor rounds (that was the role of the M2/M3 APC) or heavy explosives.
However, APCs and tanks are impractical in cities because they're heavy and damage the roads, because they're easier to hit, because they're hard to get out of, and because they require special training to be able to properly drive them. Hummvees, OTOH, can be driven by just about anyone, they're mobile and agile (compared to APCs), and easy to get out of to deal with a situation.
The rest of your points are fairly valid, though. The nature of warfare was changing by the time of the Gulf War, and we saw it urbanize during the 1990s. However, generals almost always fight the last war, which in our case was Vietnam. Retrofitting the vehicles is possible, but this creates tremendous wear and tear on them because the frames are not designed to handle the additional weight. It also tremendously reduces the total payload, and accelerates engine wear, making it very costly. New vehicles do not have this problem, but the Pentagon largely did not realize the need for them, and so did not start serious production on them until 2003/2004.
I know of at least one person who believes that all abortion should be outlawed, even in the cases of rape or incest, or where the life of the mother is at stake. The person is quite adamant about this, but is still struggling with the question of IV fertilization, and admits that he has not yet had time to come to an answer that will placate his mind. He is so strongly against abortions, but by opposing IV fertilization, he would be against someone -- presumably one of the couple is healthy and would not otherwise have problems -- being able to have a child.
Note that the context of this discussion came about with the explicit exclusion of adoption as a solution. It was limited solely to the question of what to do with the leftover embryos.
On the basis that anything that experiences growth (positive or negative) can have the growth rate expressed as an exponent, yes, it is growing exponentially. However, common usage of the term refers to things at least squaring on an annual basis, which is why I said "not in the conventional sense of the word" to short-circuit pedantic responses, and which neither population nor oil growth is doing.
World population is growing at about 1.14% according to the CIA World Factbook, and is expected to cease growing around the middle of the century, tipping over into a slow decline for a while until it stabilizes. Global oil production is about 85 million bbl/day in 2005, up from 77 million in 2001, or about 2.6% annualized.
Yes, you can attach an exponent to them to reflect the growth. In this case, though, on conventional discussion terms, it is inappropriate.
Oil use is not rising "exponentially," at least not in the conventional sense of the word. It's rising at a more rapid rate than before due to more growth in China and India and at a somewhat higher rate than increases in oil production, but it's certainly not exponential.
It's one thing to take a side in a debate, but please do be rational about it.
States and cities are not signing up to it, because they can't. What they are doing is enacting laws that encourage or require certain limits on emissions. The end result of this is, or will soon be, that many businesses will leave those areas. Some of the businesses will stay because they're big enough or small enough that moving isn't financially viable, but don't be surprised to see some of those locations with higher unemployment as the policies kick into effect.
Europe is finding that Kyoto is a lot harder to put into place than they expected, and there has been talk of modifying it so that they get a little more time. A few nations have managed to pull it off, but France, Germany, and others are realizing the costs involved are not so easily borne.
Part of the foam breakage may be due to the formula change that was made in an attempt to get away from using freon. Even though the EPA granted NASA a specific exemption, the desire to at least appear more 'green' caused them to change the formula used, which has had a number of unexpected side effects, one of which, as I understand it, is that the new foam is far more brittle than the old.
PKI in an effective trust architecture is much harder to do. Sure, you can create your own structure for free using OpenSSL, but why should I trust you? More importantly, why should I trust your brother's uncle's cousin's son's former roommate's key, which has a trust relationship all the way back through that chain with you?
Compare this with the trust architecture built with assistance from a VeriSign or an Entrust. They have a known trust level based on established practices which filter down through their customers, who are required to pass audits to continue the trust relationships. Maintaining this architecture costs money, and they pass it on (I mean they really pass it on) to their customers, but the customers get the benefit of having that trust relationship not only for their own use, but for the use of their customers, who can if they so choose see that the key is ultimately traceable back to this trusted entity. (Note that I'm referring more to larger-scale organizations here, and not so much to the low-level things that require little or no identity verification.)
Slashdot Mirror
That would be Final Cut, and I enjoyed it, so therefore I inflict upon you the memories of it by mentioning the title.
You may want to update what you know about William Gray, because this recent Discover Magazine interview suggests that he's completely opposite your statements. Examples:
... I'm not disputing that there has been global warming. There was a lot of global warming in the 1930s and '40s, and then there was a slight global cooling from the middle '40s to the early '70s. And there has been warming since the middle '70s, especially in the last 10 years. But this is natural, due to ocean circulation changes and other factors. It is not human induced. ... Nearly all of my colleagues who have been around 40 or 50 years are skeptical as hell about this whole global-warming thing. But no one asks us."
"I don't have the budget that I had, so I have cut my project way back. I am in retirement. I'm still working every day, but I don't teach and I don't have as many graduate students and as much financial need. I've got a little money from Lexington Insurance out of Boston, and I have some National Science Foundation money. For years I haven't had any NOAA, NASA, or Navy money."
Nothing from NOAA, an organization you specifically mention as working with him.
"Right now I'm trying to work on this human-induced global-warming thing that I think is grossly exaggerated.
That -- and the rest of the interview -- sounds like a great deal of disagreement that global warming will lead to bigger western Atlantic hurricanes. He's convinced that it's all natural cycles of ocean temperatures, and that humans have little or nothing to do with it.
More than one hurricane specialist has also told more than one climatologist to go soak his head, as the current rise in hurricanes was predicted years ago. Before the beginning of the current season, there was a (rather amusing) tit-for-tat going on between certain eminent climatologists and certain eminent hurricane specialists. The hurricane people said, "We'll have lots of storms this year, and a lot of them will be big." The climatologists said, "See?! Global warming!" To which the hurricane specialists replied, "No, normal pattern." To which the climatologists said, "No! Global warming! You don't know what you're talking about!" To which the hurricane people said, "You're lame. I don't want to talk to you anymore."
Well, it was more involved than that, and actually funny. But you get the idea.
Are polar bear populations not going up despite the melting of the cap? What portion of a bear's diets is made up of seals as opposed to fish or other sources?
Ice roads are usually built over lakes, many of them shallow. The research bases are outnumbered by the communities mentioned in the same post. They rely on truckers crossing the ice to keep them alive through fuel, food, and spare parts, not to mention the delivery of mail.
Thank you for noticing. I tried using it a few weeks ago, just to make a simple triangle. Figuring out how to draw a line took about 20 minutes, and then all of the other things that seemed to contravene everything I knew about GUIs made me give up, infuriated. I wondered how anyone could tolerate it (in somewhat more coarse language) before going and pouring myself a glass of scotch and watching Mythbusters, who at least make some sense.
AVG has scored poorly on a number of tests that I've seen. I ditched them and went for Avast instead. Thinking about buying one of these others, though.
Panda required an update for all but the two Bozari viruses according to the spreadsheet. I don't know how they came up with a 6/6 score.
For me, before the movie and after the movie is a social event. I like going with friends, discussing things, having fun. Once you're in the movie, with the exception of group laughter, shock, etc, you should be silent. I don't speak to the people with me, and I try to keep the sounds of eating candy or whatever as quiet as possible, such as pouring my Reese's Pieces into a napkin so the package doesn't make noise during the movie.
My worse movie experience ever was the rereleased Empire Strikes Back at (IIRC) Mann's Chinese in Los Angeles. The place is huge -- palacial, in your parlance -- and filled with people making so much noise during the movie that I couldn't hear any of it, even though I was in a relatively good seat. Waste of money, in my mind.
Only films worth seeing in the last decade?
What about American Beauty? Finding Nemo? Seven? Gladiator? Saving Private Ryan? Fight Club? Donnie Darko? Shrek? Usual Suspects? Hotel Rwanda?
Two tickets ($9.50 each) plus a shared large popcorn/soda combo ($7.50) comes close to $30 ($26.50). And I usually go either first or last showing to avoid the problem people. I will make exceptions for certain movies (H2G2, for example), but generally I will not see a movie on the opening Friday because the level of stupid in the audience is too high.
I'd heard something about methane, but I'm not sure I buy into that.
I saw something recently, possibly a Jane's analysis, that suggested that the SR-71 was retired when Aurora was scheduled to take over, but then that Aurora didn't work out which was why the Blackbird was brought back in, then retired a few years later when a new replacement was available. It's possible, I suppose, that the Aurora was grounded for some universal reason such as an unexpected mandatory engine replacement that took some time to work out.
The system will probably work like the ABL. A low-power targeting laser makes the first contact with the target. This allows for target correction and ionization of a channel for the main beam to use. Once the target is confirmed (probably a fraction of a second), the main laser fires, with virtually no chance for the target to deviate.
Depending on its uses and where it's aimed, there's a good chance that the beam will simply fire off hamrlessly into space, presuming that enough of it makes it through the atmosphere to be able to do damage. If it misses and hits the ground or sea... Well, that could be problematic, depending on what it hits. Flash fires, steam explosions, and serious sunburns are just a few things that I can think of.
The designers were providing a replacement for the original Jeep, not an armored combat vehicle. They needed something lightweight and fast, able to deflect the odd rifle round. They weren't intended to deal with anti-armor rounds (that was the role of the M2/M3 APC) or heavy explosives.
However, APCs and tanks are impractical in cities because they're heavy and damage the roads, because they're easier to hit, because they're hard to get out of, and because they require special training to be able to properly drive them. Hummvees, OTOH, can be driven by just about anyone, they're mobile and agile (compared to APCs), and easy to get out of to deal with a situation.
The rest of your points are fairly valid, though. The nature of warfare was changing by the time of the Gulf War, and we saw it urbanize during the 1990s. However, generals almost always fight the last war, which in our case was Vietnam. Retrofitting the vehicles is possible, but this creates tremendous wear and tear on them because the frames are not designed to handle the additional weight. It also tremendously reduces the total payload, and accelerates engine wear, making it very costly. New vehicles do not have this problem, but the Pentagon largely did not realize the need for them, and so did not start serious production on them until 2003/2004.
I know of at least one person who believes that all abortion should be outlawed, even in the cases of rape or incest, or where the life of the mother is at stake. The person is quite adamant about this, but is still struggling with the question of IV fertilization, and admits that he has not yet had time to come to an answer that will placate his mind. He is so strongly against abortions, but by opposing IV fertilization, he would be against someone -- presumably one of the couple is healthy and would not otherwise have problems -- being able to have a child.
Note that the context of this discussion came about with the explicit exclusion of adoption as a solution. It was limited solely to the question of what to do with the leftover embryos.
Would the toning of an RSS reader for the update of the Slashdot feed to include this story count as sounding the death knell?
On the basis that anything that experiences growth (positive or negative) can have the growth rate expressed as an exponent, yes, it is growing exponentially. However, common usage of the term refers to things at least squaring on an annual basis, which is why I said "not in the conventional sense of the word" to short-circuit pedantic responses, and which neither population nor oil growth is doing.
World population is growing at about 1.14% according to the CIA World Factbook, and is expected to cease growing around the middle of the century, tipping over into a slow decline for a while until it stabilizes. Global oil production is about 85 million bbl/day in 2005, up from 77 million in 2001, or about 2.6% annualized.
Yes, you can attach an exponent to them to reflect the growth. In this case, though, on conventional discussion terms, it is inappropriate.
Actually, the graph you provided is in thousands of years, so that would be 450,000 years, not 450 years.
;)
That's what he said:
"This shows 5 separate changes in excess of 6 Degrees C in 450 thousand years."
Might want to look for those numbers in the form of words. They can be tricky.
Oil use is not rising "exponentially," at least not in the conventional sense of the word. It's rising at a more rapid rate than before due to more growth in China and India and at a somewhat higher rate than increases in oil production, but it's certainly not exponential.
It's one thing to take a side in a debate, but please do be rational about it.
Clinton did sign it. He just never sent it to the Senate for ratification after it made it clear that it would never pass it.
States and cities are not signing up to it, because they can't. What they are doing is enacting laws that encourage or require certain limits on emissions. The end result of this is, or will soon be, that many businesses will leave those areas. Some of the businesses will stay because they're big enough or small enough that moving isn't financially viable, but don't be surprised to see some of those locations with higher unemployment as the policies kick into effect.
Europe is finding that Kyoto is a lot harder to put into place than they expected, and there has been talk of modifying it so that they get a little more time. A few nations have managed to pull it off, but France, Germany, and others are realizing the costs involved are not so easily borne.
Part of the foam breakage may be due to the formula change that was made in an attempt to get away from using freon. Even though the EPA granted NASA a specific exemption, the desire to at least appear more 'green' caused them to change the formula used, which has had a number of unexpected side effects, one of which, as I understand it, is that the new foam is far more brittle than the old.
PKI in an effective trust architecture is much harder to do. Sure, you can create your own structure for free using OpenSSL, but why should I trust you? More importantly, why should I trust your brother's uncle's cousin's son's former roommate's key, which has a trust relationship all the way back through that chain with you?
Compare this with the trust architecture built with assistance from a VeriSign or an Entrust. They have a known trust level based on established practices which filter down through their customers, who are required to pass audits to continue the trust relationships. Maintaining this architecture costs money, and they pass it on (I mean they really pass it on) to their customers, but the customers get the benefit of having that trust relationship not only for their own use, but for the use of their customers, who can if they so choose see that the key is ultimately traceable back to this trusted entity. (Note that I'm referring more to larger-scale organizations here, and not so much to the low-level things that require little or no identity verification.)
Now science can turn to figuring out what nougat is.